Sing You Home
by freerangeegghead
Summary: Hermione Granger is an ordinary student living an ordinary life in an ordinary town. But a strange encounter with a mysterious woman reveals to her that her life is anything but and that her life is about to change. Hermione/Fleur, Extremely extreme A/U, Fantasy, angst, etc. Warning: FEMSLASH.
1. Chapter 1

_**Summary: **__**Hermione Granger is an ordinary student living an ordinary life in an ordinary town. But a strange encounter with a mysterious woman reveals to her that her life is anything but and that her life is about to change. **_

_**Genre: Urban/Adult Minimalist Fantasy, a "What if...?" fic (with thanks to Marvel Comics' "What If...?" series)**_

_**Characters: Hermione Granger, Fleur Delacour and some other characters (as portrayed in both the books and the movies)**_

_**Warnings: FEMslash, i.e. girl-on-girl pairing, extremely extreme A/U, but with mentions of canon (modifications/divergence from canon), character deaths and violence, some other Rated M stuff (NO smut, underage or otherwise), relentless use of the present tense**_

_**Rating: Rated T~M**_

_**Inspirations/reasons for writing:The Craft, Witches of East Wick, Season of the Witch, Merlin, Charmed, Grimm, Buffy, Angel, Neverending Story, Willow, Princess Bride, Game of Thrones, Rise of the Guardians, Lord of the Rings, Oh My Goddess, Haruhi Suzumiya, Madeleine L'Engle books, Marvel comics, a lot of books on religion and philosophy. Also, bec of a nice fic from anamatics that I came across. And, bec whilst HP series is a cracking good read, it needs more Hermione and femslash action, so.**_

_**Acknowledgments: The beta, DragonsWillFly who encouraged me to expand my fic writing horizons and for everything else. Much thanks.**_

_**Disclaimer: I do not own the HP characters. Unless otherwise referenced, everything else, including the prose, is mine.**_

_**Read at your own risk. You've been warned. If this is not for you, skip this story. If you do like it, reviews much appreciated. Much thanks.**_

* * *

That was the autumn when Hermione Granger met Fleur Delacour.

Hermione Granger remembers it because it was the time when the bad dreams stopped.

She remembers it because it was the time when she started seeing things that other people couldn't.

It was that time when she realized that she was no ordinary girl.

It had started out ordinary enough. Well, as ordinary as any other ordinary day in Hermione Granger's extraordinary ordinary life.

* * *

Hermione is having a bad day.

In fact, if she were to be accurate, she'd been having, perhaps, a most hideous life.

For starters, as a student in the Salem International Institute of Arts and Sciences, she finds college life to be positively horrendous.

To begin with, her professor in her gender and history studies class who had given her a hard time last semester, Professor Horn, refused to have her change classes, so she can have the more agreeable Professor Smith. The reasons for her wanting to change classes are numerous, the most important of which is the fact that Professor Horn is quite keen on giving her horrid grades for papers that other professors would quite happily give her an "A" for. She had nearly dropped Professor Horn's subject last semester, but her need to have a perfect attendance and an unblemished record in the educational institution she is currently studying prevented her from doing so. She had enrolled in gender studies this semester because it was the only available elective that she is interested in, but when she had found out Horn was teaching it, she had tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to change classes. Through a long, complicated list of bureaucratic and administrative wankery that involved having to get written permission from both professors, the administrative officer, the dean, the vice president for academic affairs, the department head and the guidance director, about her reasons for having to drop one class in favor of the other, whilst trying to beat the deadline for changing classes (which, to her horror, had been only the first week of classes), in which she had spent inordinate amounts of time waiting outside office doors for signatures and letters from people who were on leave, absent, late or just completely uninterested in her hardly life-threatening reasons for changing subjects, she had ended up frustrated, almost driven to insanity and ultimately unable to change subjects.

So it has started all over again.

Professor Horn had called the paper she had written this semester for him entitled "Gender, Existentialism and the Fear of the Feminine: The Salem Witch Trials", which explored the Salem Witch Trials and how the hunt for, subsequent trial and punishment of the alleged Salem witches had actually been more an attack on femininity and femaleness, that fear of the Otherness and thus of the unknown, that the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and Kierkegaard had written so much about it, thus sealing the fate of young women who, by all accounts, exhibited none of the things that they were so wrongly accused of. Professor Horn, round, portly, as frustratingly and decidedly American as Hermione is staunchly English, despite the fact that she has spent most of her life living somewhere else, had given her paper a "C", with a dismissive wave of the hand, and in that tone that indicates that he has seen it all, "Yes, yes, quite right, otherness, unknown, existentialism, nothing I haven't heard of before – anything can be claimed as otherness in historical or fictional events, vampires, werewolves, bloody witches," and he descends into some brief, pointless ramblings that end with him unapologetically calling the paper "trite", "infantile", "uninspired" and "completely devoid of any inspiration".

She'd argued with the man so passionately and vehemently, demanding that she be given extra work, that she had painstakingly researched, brainstormed, outlined, wrote and re-wrote, revised, proofread and edited the paper for the better part of a week, but the man had refused.

Hermione tries to restrain herself from snorting out in frustration as she takes a step back, grudgingly shouldering her bag as she walks away from Horn.

* * *

She's always short of money as well. Her parents are doctors, and she has never wanted for anything, but they have not exactly been living in the lap of luxury either. Her parents enjoy a respectable status in the international medical community, as doctors who spend their time overseas, in less developed countries, providing medical services for communities unable to have access to these services on their own on meager or non-existent government budgets. Thus she's spent a part of her childhood in Somalia when her parents spent their time deworming children, in Ethiopia addressing the food concerns of undernourished children, in the poor townships of South Africa tending to the health concerns of children, in Bangladesh and India, addressing children's own concerns. She had enjoyed every minute of it, although it is not lost on her that a part of her childhood has her parents spending most of their time taking care of children of other people rather than her. Now, they are currently in Australia having accepted a research fellowship. In a few months, if all goes well, they will come to the United States to teach in a university. In the meantime, now that she is in the United States it is not as easy to just call them and ask for money. Though she has a scholarship, she still needs money and they have offered to help with her expenses, for which she is grateful.

But it doesn't mean has to worry about such things as food, bills, internet, clothing and some other incidental expenses, and while she thinks she's pretty good at handling money, she feels like it is never enough.

She's tried to look into jobs, but there is something infuriating about this American companies. Abercrombie and Fitch seems like a cesspool of misogynist, racist people, and though she qualifies enough to be part of the staff, she feels their hiring policy just leaves a lot to be desired. She couldn't apply at some fastfood restaurants because she finds the questionable hiring and production practices and their blatantly anti-environment practices abhorrent. She'd finally gotten a job at a coffeeshop though she could do with a bigger tips and a bigger pay, she has flexible working hours that can fit around her study schedule so she really cannot complain. Plus her boss is nice and gives her unlimited coffee and pastry supplies, which are good for when she doesn't feel like cooking and just sleeping at the end of a long, hard day.

* * *

And then there is the roommate situation.

Hermione Granger can't seem to get the best roommates either. The first roommate she had kept calling her "Gaymione" and kept teasing her about being such a lesbian about things, which, honestly she cannot understand. It had started when she'd blushed and hadn't known what to say the first time her roommate had gone around walking with just a towel wrapped around her body or changing clothes right in front of Jean. Hermione is not averse to experimentation and had not really thought about it, love is love, that's what she grew up learning from parents who were liberal people who voted Labor and decried anything racist, misogynist, or discriminatory in the least. If she were to be honest, she likes to think sexuality is fluid and required no labels, and so it annoys her that in a place like America, founded on freedom, equality and egalitarian, she can still meet those people who wear their prejudice and bigotry in their sleeves. They are, in her father's more colorful moments, best described as wankers and ignored at best.

But she couldn't ignore it.

Not when her roommate had went out of her way to make Hermione uncomfortable. It's that British reserve, Hermione thinks. American classmates and acquaintances seem to think it's the height of entertainment just to see her lose it, or blush, at the very least.

She'd complained about it to her RA and she'd thankfully found another roommate but it the new roommate is hardly an improvement. Roommates always seemed to call her things. "Nerd", "geek", "dork" come to mind. She guesses this is the American propensity to bully, to call other people some awful nomenclature to make themselves feel a bit better about their own tiny, infinitesimal miserable lives, but she cannot say she enjoys it. She'd not experienced that in other countries but here. It is truly, a uniquely American experience.

The new roommate she'd had this year wasn't any better. Aside from the fact that the new roommate had this annoying habit of clipping fingernails and toenails in the room, while Hermione was there, studying, nail clippings almost always flew to whatever textbook or homework or project Hermione was doing. Hermione Granger thinks she can relate with Holden Caulfield and his professed aversion of toenail clipping in mixed company.

Her new roommate was also this meat-eating person who brought burgers to the room or some shawarma and it would fill the room with the nauseating, annoying smell of meat that she couldn't remove for the whole day and worse, also had this annoying habit of eatings things with her mouth open, so that she could hear her lips smacking and snapping against each other, the sound of crunching and grinding and everything just plainly annoying. Her roommate also had an issue with her clothing preferences, shoes, her bushy hair, her glasses, her propensity to go to the library, complaining sometimes that Hermione smelled like books and paste and mold and pretty much everything else, really.

But the worst thing comes one night when she wakes up in the middle of the night from yet another spate of nightmares involving wraiths and ghosts and monsters and darkness, to the sound of her roommate, Kirsten, moaning between the sheets. She would have been okay with it, except she started hearing a low, deep groan as well. At first she pauses, tries to think about what that sound is supposed to be. Kirsten isn't a music major like she is, so she knows she isn't vocalizing. She isn't a drama major as well, so she knows the girl isn't rehearsing or getting immersed in a role. When there is a rustle, and giggles, Hermione tries to control herself, trying not to get angry at this.

But then, the silly American girl lets out a gasp and in a high, shrill, giggly voice, proceeds to have a conversation on lubrication, and the merits of vaseline as opposed to water-based ones, contraceptives, and whether the roommate (Hermione) has any, which is an opportunity for the roommate to briefly make fun of said roommate. The male voice interrupts the roommate and suggests impatiently how best to enjoy the challenge of sticking organs in various orifices to Hermione's growing annoyance and increasing feelings of violation.

There's a silence and then there's gasp, and a giggle, a pause, a silence as if they are debating what to do next, and then the rustle of the bedsheets, before Kirsten and whoever is the flavor of the week she's picked up at a frat party start to grunt and groan in unison, one shrill and excited, another low and Hermione tries to pull the blanket higher over her head but that doesn't really make the noise go away. The noise has escalated now to a higher level, like a car that's gone from first gear to third gear, going ninety on the freeway. This of course means the noises they are making have become louder, so that now they sound like the ghosts of hyenas being murdered in their sleep, or alternately, mating albatrosses.

Everything is painfully punctuated with giggles and laughter.

She feels like she's listening to Sir David Attenborough describing the mating rituals of American heterosexual men and women, and he would be describing said frat boy as someone with "spectacular wattles" and the sex as "a series of events that's long and complicated". Her train of thought is interrupted by the roommate.

Hermione sighs. When she hears the man say a number of crude profanities she decides she's had enough, and she pulls the blanket aside and gets up, trying not to see the other bed, where, even in the semi-darkness, she could see a couple coupling on the bed, back and head covered mercifully with the blanket, but the thighs and legs and feet cruelly not covered and so she sees, yet again, an eyeful that she thinks she may never unsee in the near or far future. She wishes both voices would just go away.

She quickly grabs her bag, and rushes to the toilet to get her toothbrush, but when she grabs it from the cabinet, she realizes there's a condom attached to it and she drops it on to the garbage can with a strangled, surprised cry.

There is still much rustling and creaking and noisy activity on the bed across from hers, but she does not notice the lack of voices, or moaning and groaning and the very loud noises that her roommate is accustomed to assailing her every time she brings a man home.

She grabs her pink coat from the coat rack and an animal print sweater and bolts out of the room, slamming the door as hard as she can.

She has got to find a new place to leave.

As she slams the door behind her, she briefly catches the writhing forms beneath the blankets and she mutters something angrily, wishing the two would fall to the floor and there is a loud crack and bang, flashes of light and dust, and she sees the bed collapse in on itself with the two people exclaiming loud shouts of surprise.

* * *

A couple of days after, she's at the end of her wits with a scrawled list of crossed out numbers on her lap, fighting a headache as she goes over off-campus places she's called and visited.

They'd all been terrible, she thinks. One had answered with only heaving breathing, and some muffled laughter in the background, another had answered with a list of things that she didn't want, "No pets, no vegan, no vegetarian, no visitors, no loud music playing, no parties, no singing in the shower, or in the living room, no show tunes, no..." she'd hung up after that. There were some who were too expensive, or too far, and the ones she'd visited just didn't seem the kind she can imagine herself spending the next three years, or at least the semester in, they all seemed not right for some strange reason.

She had really needed to get a new place. She knows it's only her second semester but she hopes she can find an off-campus place to live. The only reason she's still in a dorm putting up with an annoying, insensitive roommate is because she is trying to save money. Her parents have put aside some for her college fund, and she was unable to apply for a college loan, but with the rate of inflation, economic uncertainty, cost of accommodations, transportation, food, textbooks and other incidentals, she can barely make ends meet. She's actually gone through some off-campus apartments but the places are either too expensive or too far or are too good to be true – cheap accommodations situated in questionable areas of the town where mugging is the least of her problems. She wishes for the nth time, that she'd gotten into that college in Barcelona she'd always wanted to go to. If she'd gotten in, then she'd be in Barcelona instead, like she wanted, instead she finds a curious acceptance letter from a little-known college in Salem, Massachusetts that, based on the brochure, seems interesting enough.

So now she's found a place at a veterinarian clinic – where she is allowed to stay at the back of the clinic, on a little cot, looking after the dogs, cats, hamsters and assorted other animals that pet owners, animal shelters and dog pounds bring for treatment. So now she smells like wet cats and dogs, always has fur on her, once coughed up a furball and is perpetually kept awake by various animals making a cacophony of noise at all hours of the day and night so much so that she's developed bloodshot eyes, there are dark circles under her eyes and it's a battle to keep her eyes open, especially in Horn's relentlessly boring class.

But at least she's able to sleep – even though, as always, her dreams are filled with flashes of strange images – darkness, voices, pain, despair, like she's never going to be happy ever again.

* * *

So, yes, she's been having a bad day.

Or more appropriately, a bad life.

A horribly ordinary, extraordinary bad life.

Of course, it would make sense that the first time she sees the woman, she sees her in the library.

It makes sense because the library is her sanctuary. It is her life. It is where she goes to find peace and quiet.

She is buried deep in books when she spots a tall, slender young woman with long, silvery blonde hair pass her by, wearing a blue blouse and jeans, scanning the crowd for an empty table and seat. The first thought that Hermione thinks is, the woman is beautiful, scathingly feminine, and for some strange reason, she reminds her of an an exotic bird. She looked, in a word, infinitely mysterious. There is something ethereal, angelic about her.

The young woman pauses. The woman glides into the room with grace and litheness that makes Hermione stop and watch her. A dancer, perhaps. The confidence and radiance the other woman exudes makes Hermione think the woman is a teacher, no, she suspects she is a student just like Hermione. In fact, she thinks she may even have seen her before. But what Hermione remembers is the eyes – bluest of blues, like a frozen explosion of brilliance, at once cold as she dismisses Hermione as insignificant, and interesting and interested as she screws up her eyes in concentration on the room before her.

The woman seems to have decided because she takes a seat only a few chairs from Hermione. Hermione sees the woman also has a textbook on physics, quantum mechanics, mythology and a couple of old, worn, dusty, moldy books whose titles she can't read.

The librarian comes, and starts to speak in a low voice to the woman and the woman starts to speak in an English that is unquestionably so foreign that Hermione automatically thinks the woman is not American. The voice is musical, she thinks, and when the woman laughs, it sounds like a tinkling piano, and for some strange reason, a brief bright light seems to flood the room, a trick of the light Hermione thinks and she thinks she hears, ever so faintly, some familiar music, a song, an aria, a woman singing something beautiful and powerful and awe-inspiring, voice transcendent, wonderful, and she thinks of spring time, and a soaring of the spirit, and summers with her parents, spent outdoors, on Sundays, when they could catch a break from their work, and Hermione suddenly remembers them, feels homesick, but how, she wonders, can one be homesick when one cannot reasonably feel any place to be called home? Hermione is instantly filled with sadness. But it is not the sadness that is followed by despair though. It is, for some strange, inexplicable reason, a sadness that is like a singing of the soul. She stops, wondering where all these thoughts have come from, and wants to look at the young woman, now in earnest and deep conversation with the librarian, but she tries not to stare or think too much about it. She has to study afterall. And she does not want to be rude. That's an American habit she would rather not adapt.

The other woman lingers in her mind a bit to make her forget about studying.

She feels the scar on her left arm and her neck ache and she scratches at them absently as she stares at the young, blonde woman.

There is a silence that pervades the room now, and she looks towards the windows, sees the darkening skies, the trees rustling in the distance, the lake silent and inviting, and then down, over at the school grounds, where the impassive statue of the school's founders, John Griffin and Siobhan Draven stand like sentinels guarding the school.

Then the woman looks up and catches Hermione staring and Hermione blushes so quickly and so deeply, feeling her heart seize in her chest, making herself feel breathless, that she stares down at her book, grabs it and tries to hide her face in it. But before she does, she sees the young woman smile softly at her.

* * *

Later, when a friend texts her reminding her of the party she is supposed to attend, she reluctantly goes, even though she is on the verge of turning it down. She's too tired, and she's been kept awake at night, by the animals at the vet's clinic (no matter, she loves animals and she would rather live there than at the dorms) but Selena had been insistent and so she finds herself in a house, filled with smoke, and laughter and a mix of young men and women such as herself in various states of drunkenness and devil-may-care attitude, either trying to apply newly discovered, perceived sexual sophistication on other college guests or drinking their belligerence and confusion about college life away and always, always the throbbing bass beat from some predictably boring American pop singer. Hermione Granger thinks she is bored and should go home. Selena Goodspeed, who has her own place, could, within reason, perhaps find her way home.

Once she finds Selena and tells her she is tired and has to prepare for a paper for next Monday, Selena smiles and waves and so she makes her way through the crowd, trying to push people dancing like gibbons away so she can make her way to the door. But in the middle of it all, she spots someone slender and tall and beautiful, in tight jeans and a blue blouse, hair silvery blonde, making her way through the crowd herself, just a few yards from her, eyes darting here and there, and Hermione Granger feels like time has suddenly slows down, and stops, the noise of music and laughter fading away as she stares, mesmerized at the woman and again, suddenly she remembers again, music, a sweet, all powerful, transcendent singing coming out of nowhere, filling her, washing through her, and she finds herself staring at the other woman then, as if there is a memory that she is supposed to remember, and it feels almost as if she's under some kind of spell, it all feels so magical, but spells are foolish, she thinks, and magic does not exist, can never exist, and someone bumps into her, and another jostles her, and the spell is broken and time resumes, speeds up and the woman has gone, talking to someone else entirely.

Hermione Granger stands there, unsure of what just happened.

She reckons she's just too tired and it's giving her hallucinations and confusing thoughts.

Someone hands her a beer and she mutters a "thank you" and there are conversations, mostly from people who are fascinated by the fact that she is English and she ends up drinking more and by the end of the night, she's tipsy and she decides to take a cab and go home.

She tries to find her friend, Selena, and ends up by the back door, standing on the porch, looking around for her friend, but what she sees is an empty backyard, a lawn, weeds, bushes, trees, the woods.

She sees something in the middle of it all – a blue ball of shimmering, translucent light, with tendrils of light emanating from it, and figures, figures too small to make out if they are human or not, as bright and blue and transparent as the ball of light, and in the middle of it all, the woman from the party, from the library, in her jeans and her blouse, filled with light, and the music, always the music, music she's never heard before, coming to fill her, lift her, make her remember something, flashes – happiness and contentment and peace.

And as she watches, she sees the woman turn and look at her and then Hermione feels fear and she turns and runs, finds a cab and goes home.

That night she falls asleep in a dreamless, peaceful sleep – sleep she's never had before.


	2. Chapter 2

Fleur Delacour listens to the faint, vaguely musical, hissing of the late afternoon breeze through the leaves of trees and grass. The sun is setting over the horizon, over the lake, and the woods, now engulfed in autumn, is the color of flame. Above her, in the swiftly darkening sky of orange and purple, she can see the waning crescent moon, the faint outline of evening stars. Stars. She smiles. When night falls, and the stars come out, she feels comforted somehow, they feel like the one thing that has not changed, eternally silent, eternally there, unchanging, forever. Everything else here, in this place, is not. _I could use the stars_, she thinks, as she sits in the middle of the woods, contemplating the darkness. She can sense, even at this distance, a feeling that something significant is about to happen.

The woods are dying, this is the first thing that she senses when she comes to these woods many moons ago, white fire splitting the air where before only the woods stood, a flower opening in the middle of the woods, an orchid of crimson and blue that spread its petals, in a swirl of exploding bright blue and red light, the sound of sharp cracks and lightning and wind, of gathering thunder reaching a crescendo, so she can step into these woods from somewhere else. The woods are dying, she thinks, and she realizes the darkness of which she and a host of others have fought against for so long has reached even this remote place.

And as light and sound and wind carry her into her new surroundings, in a night as dark as this, her body bright flame and blue, blurry around the edges, her face all contorted in sweat and agony, she drops to the ground, weak, exhausted, she realizes that she may be nearing the end of her journey, that she may not be able to journey any longer, that whatever had carried her this far, all these years, for the many moons and many winters she's stayed away so desperately, even though the price for it is that she may never be able to return, may never be able to use what has been bestowed upon her, her heritage, that of her ancestors, of her grandmother and mother, even though she may never be able to see them, or any of her friends or family ever again. She had been warned that the ultimate consequence would be that she would lose herself. But she had made her promise because she was one of only a select and precious few who could do it. And because they had been brave, those that came before her. And so is she. She will be brave for all of them. Wars and rumors of wars and defeats whispered in desperation, atrocities begotten by others begotten by hatreds born of a long twisting history of arrogance, ignorance and fear, dictates that she fulfill her promise, even though for so long, when there was only nothing but futility, and even when she had felt that same defeat, that feeling of giving up, she finds courage in the deepest, darkest parts of her. She hopes that this time, at this moment, she will find what she is looking for. For she has journeyed far and wide and she feels that her life, as she knows it, is at an end.

The first signs that make Fleur realize that she is in the right place, is the fact that whatever gifts she has, has grown stronger here. It has changed, of course, she had been warned of this, her journey would change her, would do great and terrible things to her, would drive her to the edge of her sanity, would do things to her mind, to her feelings, to her memories, that she would know fury and rage and hatred and despair and destruction such as she had never known, but as she stands there, in the middle of the woods, like she did a few moons ago, she realizes she has grown stronger, that she can conjure the voices, the images, light and sound, memories from a different time, tumbling forth out of thin air and into her mind. She can hear the wind again, can hear the trees, can hear the lake, can hear the memories of the woods, of which her people, her race, creatures of time that had existed long before humans came to the earth, had come from. She can sense, again, the history, the memories of the world, of its creatures, in the wind and in the trees and leaves and grass of the woods. Her skin, her very being, remembers this, all of these. Her race is an ancient race, her grandmother once said. Older than the trees, than the mountains and hills even, as old as the other creatures that came before, and thus infinitely wiser, ancient warriors, called to protect and to serve, older than humans even, much older, humans are a young race, her grandmother says, young and foolish and still prone to destruction. Her grandmother had told her she, they, their race, are renowned for their inability to forget and that wherever the journey will take her, her memories will be her strength, her memories will guide her to where she is supposed to go. But she finds that years of journeying, from one place to the other, had dulled the memories, had made her forget some of these things. That she remembers things now in fragments, memories whirling away from her as she tries to remember them. She thinks it is because, unlike her grandmother or mother, she does not possess the whole memory of their race, a consequence of having had a human father. And no amount of ritual conjured by her grandmother would change that. No matter. Right now, standing in the middle of the woods, feeling the power and the energy surge through her in bright light, crackling and mighty, she thinks this must have something to do with the fact that she has found it, that she is nearing the end of her journey.

As she stretches out her arms, in the middle of the woods, full of something akin to joy and relief and ecstacy, knowing that what has been lost seems to be coming back to her, she spots a lone figure standing on the edge of the woods, by the house where she knows the woman would be, where a party is being thrown, its revelers ignorant of the danger everyone is in. She had gone, though such trifling activities had lost their hold on her, she had gone only because it was an opportunity to see whether this really was the right place and whether what she has been searching for is here.

When the young woman comes out of the house, in the yard, and stares at her, right there, engulfed in light and energy and power, at once filled with terror and disbelief, Fleur Delacour knows that this is the right place.

* * *

It is her, Fleur is certain of it.

No one can mistake the bushy hair, now tamed and curled and hanging in waves down her shoulder and back. No one can mistake the seemingly permanent haughty, snobbish look on her face, the intelligence in the eyes, the confidence in her posture, in her attitude. She looks older now, in her twenties, Fleur thinks, much younger than Fleur, and now exceedingly pretty. Always exceedingly pretty. The one thing she has always been is incredibly pretty. She does not remember when she has realized that the other woman is attractive, but it is true. Fleur's heart had seized at the sight, when, in this small town surrounded by the woods, seemingly untouched for years by external forces, a figure emerged amongst the crowd of students, holding books and a rucksack, navigating the crowd with ease, face creased in concentration, as if trying to figure out a difficult mathematical equation or a puzzling philosophical equation as she made her way into the building and up the steps to the library.

Fleur had followed her inside then, had charmed the guards and the librarian, and the students around her, so that she could make her way to the other woman, and sit across from her and pretend to read books. When the other woman had looked up, curious, Fleur had almost passed out from both relief and excitement, as if this moment would be taken from her, this very moment that haunted her, that taunted her, this moment of which a promise had been made, a promise she had almost given up on, a promise she almost thought she couldn't fulfill, a promise she thought had been lost. And when she catches a glimpse of the scar on the arm, the one on the neck, Fleur is certain she is the one she has been looking for. And when the young woman had stopped and stared at her, as if captivated, as if straining to hear music, Fleur is even more certain. And with it, there is much sadness and despair that suddenly fills her, because not only is the journey, her journey, ending, she senses that another has just begun. A more difficult and perilous one.

Everything else had fallen into place. A place procured, an identity acquired, a plan sorted. She finds an old acquaintance, a younger woman, about the same age as Hermione, and when the woman finds her on her doorstep, the woman does not even blink, she stands aside and lets the woman in. She takes Fleur in, feeds her, clothes her in the manner appropriate for this time, provides a place for rest, tells her what this place is. She finds the house, a Victorian house converted into a student flat with three bedrooms, one for the other woman, the other for herself, quite quaint and roomy, overlooking the lake, the woods, just a few blocks from the main street.

* * *

It is not as easy as it looks.

The young woman is a student in college, a senior, busy with papers, and quizzes and exams, and research, a thesis, her life practically lived in the library. What life she doesn't live in classrooms and labs and libraries are spent in the coffeeshop, or in the clinic, where she currently resides. Fleur can't help but smile at this. In the many other places in which she has met, seen or heard of her, she is always involved in academia, as a student, as a teacher, as a researcher, and she always seems to spend a great deal of time in the library. This in and of itself makes it easier for Fleur to find her. But the difference there is that in her travels, she is usually too late when she arrives, and the young woman is gone and she is forced to leave from that time as fast as she can. She would have given up actually, after the endless journeys she's had, but there is something about this woman, and what she has seen in her journeys, endless possibilities for one, that make her want to see this particular journey through.

Fleur thinks about the possibilities and thinks the shop would be the best place to lay out her plan.

* * *

Fleur had started to keep a diary.

She'd started to do it after the nth journey had yielded nothing and she'd on the edge of losing her mind, her identity, her very self. She could feel her old life slipping away from her and it was all she could do not to kill herself. The journey does that to you. The journey does that to everyone. He who had succeeded over death and time, who had dominion over both, in fact, had lost every last bit of humanity he had left in exchange for power and immortality. He knew of this even as he feared both death and time. They are, after all, life's greatest equalizers.

The diary had been fashioned out of something ancient, something that came from her grandmother, and the journey would not destroy it, would make it possible for her to bring it to new places. The diary is old and battered but still there and it has helped her recover and keep her memories, during those long, lonely journeys of fruitless searching and hoping.

It is this diary she is writing on now, as she sits in the far corner of the shop, every day, surreptitiously looking at the woman as she serves regular customers their meals, those hideous meals of bacon and fried eggs and sausages, of sizzling burgers and french fries, soda and coffee, repulsive meals that make her grimace. Americans, she thinks, with derision. Of all the places she finds Hermione, it has to be here. She is glad that the woman has kept her name. It is easier to confirm that it is really her.

And each time she comes, she orders black coffee and stays until Hermione's shift ends. There have been attempts, from locals, from the other regulars, to come and talk to her, but she brushes them off with a cold glare and they slink down to their own tables, nursing wounded pride and egos. She does not care for them or for any of this really. All that matters is the other woman, but how to speak to her, is another matter.

This goes on for days, and a few times she thinks Hermione is about to speak to her, but she doesn't. More often than not, Hermione regards her with a mixture of suspicion, curiosity and feigned indifference, as if willing what she has seen a few nights ago as a dream, when in reality, all that she has seen had, indeed happen.

On the nth day of the nth time Fleur makes her way to her spot in the far corner of the shop, ordering black coffee, an opportunity presents itself.

It comes in the form of one of the other young women, one of the other servers, Hermione's colleague, a woman with a bad perm, hair peroxide blonde, fingernails in angry red, lips red and dark, in the requisite pink uniform of blouse and skirt and checkered apron, taking a seat across from Fleur, taking Fleur by surprise as, without any other form of introduction, she says, "Hi, my name's Georgie, and we've got a bet going to see where you're from. We've been trying to figure out where you're from, see, and no one seems to figure out exactly where you're from. I personally think you're from...Europe or something...I don't know...maybe Germany...Belgium or something..."

Fleur regards her with annoyance and distaste, her obvious sycophancy grating like a layer of sand on her hard-earned leisure time, but withholds the rude comment about the woman having interrupted her writing because she realizes it might be an opportunity to finally meet Hermione.

"Sorry, I do not zink zis is any of your business, but what do ze ozers say?" Fleur says carefully, using a heavy accent to disguise a faultlessly good one. She's lived in different countries, and her English is as impeccable as if she'd been born speaking it, but she waits to see what the woman, Georgie, says.

Georgie shrugs. "Well, someone else said you're from, like, Holland or something, another's said you're from Russia, and still another's said you're from, I don't know, some of those smaller European countries like Czech or Slovak Republic or something...one colleague says you're from France, but I don't think so...I mean, aren't those people like..."

Fleur perks up. "Who says I am from France?"

Georgie lifts one shoulder. "Hermione. That girl over there with the curly hair."

Fleur lifts an eyebrow. "Close. Quebec." No need to tell her of her true origins. It is really none of anyone's business.

Georgie's eyes form an "O" to register this information, nodding as she does so. "Well, that's that. I guess nobody wins."

Before she leaves, Fleur stops her by saying, "Sorry, zat colleague of yours, 'ermione, I heard she is brilliant, no?"

Georgie nods. "Yes, a bit of a nerd, that one. Always studying. Always has books on her. Doesn't talk to anyone. Don't think she has friends."

"I look for a...how do you say...tutor? My English, eet ees not very good, I have need of a teacher," Fleur says.

Georgie blinks, considers this for a second, before she says, "Sure. I'll go get her."

"_Merci,_" Fleur remembers to say. "And may I have...'ow to say? _Omelet du fromage? _And a piece of _quiche,_ perhaps? _Merci._"

Minutes later, Hermione Granger, the very same person she has been looking for, is finally in front of her, looking sullen and confused and just a bit curious as as she half-scowls at Fleur for ruining her break. Fleur had watched as Georgie talks to Hermione and after awkward introductions Hermione had sat down with a sigh of resignation, evidently not enjoying the idea of having to sit across a woman who, only a few nights ago, she's seen dancing in the middle of the woods. _Oh, but if you only knew what I'd gone through to find you,_ Fleur thinks with sadness. _Then perhaps you may be a bit more understanding._ A brief awkward silence ensues after, broken by Hermione nervously comments about the weather (The English and their obsession with the weather! Fleur thinks) which Fleur uses as an opportunity for a hurried explanation about how Fleur is in need of an English tutor.

"I don't understand," Hermione says, blinking in her crisp, brisk English accent. "You need a tutor? For English?"

"Zat ees correct," Fleur says with a nod, taking a sip of her coffee and a delicate bite from the slice of cake she has ordered. The _omelet du fromage_ sadly, has not been delivered. Americans are not as cultured as they like to think, she thinks. As she looks at Hermione now, she decides she is standing by her earlier assessment: Hermione is as exceptionally pretty up close as she is from afar and had the longest, curliest, most beautiful lashes Fleur has ever seen. Her eyes, Fleur thinks, look intelligent as she searches Fleur's for a hint as to who she really is. She looks prettier now that she's older, Fleur notes. She smelled, Fleur thinks, of autumn.

Hermione, not noticing Fleur studying her, screws up her eyebrows in confusion. "But your English seems fine. Brilliant even. I can't imagine why you need a tutor. And I'm busy. Extremely busy. I don't think I can teach you."

Fleur tilts her head, contemplates Hermione for a second. Hermione averts her gaze, breaking eye contact with Fleur.

"Eet ees fine, _oui_," Fleur says now, "But I want eet...better...I need ze practice, I 'ave need of traveling, I have work, speaking English well would be...'ow to say? An asset, no?"

"But I don't really have experience in teaching, not really," Hermione says now. "I'd be horrid, I just know it. I'd be as useful to you as a fart in a jam jar."

"But you 'elp me now," Fleur says more fervently now. "I just need ze essentials, I zeenk. Like say, I pass away in ze airports and see ze officers, I want to know 'ow to say zings correctly. Or I see a _etranger_ pass out, I can say hi or talk about ze _bon temps_, ze weazer wiz _confiance en soi_, _oui_. Or I feel up a form, I understand it, I would not be confused. When I travel, zer are so many forms! I am confused. Where I come from, I travel, zere are no questions. You just disappear and you arrive! Zere is 'ere and zere is there and you go poof!"

Hermione stares at her in confusion then, just looking at her for a full minute, before she says, "You mean, pass through airports. Or pass a stranger by or when you're filling in forms and such. I don't know how you do it in France but..."

Fleur nods enthusiastically. "_Oui_. Zat is what I meant to say." As Hermione considers what Fleur has just said, Fleur quickly adds, "And my major...it is difficult...I have need of someone to help me with ze studying..."

Hermione looks Fleur then. "Somehow, I hardly think you need any help with your studying." She tilts her head then. "What _is_ your major anyway?"

"Ah, eet ees somezing called, Perceptual and Pagan Studies," Fleur says carefully.

"I haven't heard of that before," Hermione says thoughtfully.

Fleur shrugs. "They offer eet at Salem, so I study eet. I study ancient African and Native American lore and rituals, parapsychology and the paranormal, the politics of witchcraft, business management for the Yuletide and Samhain season..."

Hermione looks at her, puzzled. "Your subjects sound...interesting."

"Oui, very interesting indeed. It is my hope you can help me..._naviguer._..navigate my classes." She then stops and says, "Quebec. Zat is where I come from."

"Ah, yes."

"My friends, zey joke, sometimes I am French, sometimes I am Canadian," Fleur says airily.

Despite herself, Hermione smiles, leans over and says, with a conspiratorial look on her face, "And which one are you now?"

Fleur can't help but smile back. "I am trying to convince ze very pretty girl to teach me," Fleur begins, pretending not to notice Hermione blushing, as she continues, "So today, I am Canadian." She looks at Hermione then, eyes bright and blue, and says, with a small smile, "Besides, I am not...'ow to say? A Yankee. I know ze English dislike Yankees as much as ze French dislike zem. So eet ees good, no? Alzough, being in America, zis must be as much of a _cauchemar_...nightmare wiz you as eet ees for me..."

Hermione lets out a small laugh, shrugs and nods in assent. If Fleur is not mistaken, maybe the young woman is not as immune to her charm as she at first thought.

When Hermione does not say anything, Fleur says, "I know my English is..._parfait...sans d__é__faut_...but I feel zere is still much to learn, much zat I do not know. And I tire of zeez Americans, zeez foreigners, when I speak and they hear my accent, they laugh and say, 'Oh, zat is so French'...it makes me..._f__â__ch__é_...angry. It makes me want to take a piss."

Hermione stares at her then, before she says, "You mean, it pisses you off?"

Fleur nods. "_Oui_, zat is what I mean."

"Oh, good, I thought for a moment there, having people condescend to you has made you lose control of your bodily functions and has made you develop an inexplicable urge to go to the loo at all times," Hermione says with a smile. "And yes, you do get the occasional sod who stares at your knockers like some bloody arse, and I don't give a toss about them either way, but you get some nice ones, too."

Fleur nods. "Ah, but zeez foreigners, they can shovel their ignorance up zer ass," Fleur says with disdain.

Hermione stares at her then. "What?" When Fleur says it again, Hermione says, "Oh, you mean shove their ignorance up their arses?"

"_Oui_, zat's eet," Fleur says charmingly. "You speak French?"

Hermione shakes her head. "Oh, just _un peu._" Then, with growing confidence, Hermione says, _"Si je t'aide __à__ apprendre l'anglais, est-ce que tu m'apprendra comment embraser __à__ la francaise?"_

Fleur's smile falters and disappears for a second, as she feels a small blush spread on her cheeks and she tries to smile again, to hide her embarrassment.

Hermione looks at her then. "What?" When Fleur shakes her head, Hermione says, _"Parle-moi un peu plus de vos sous-v__ê__tement...?"_

There is an awkward silence that ensues then as Fleur's blush deepens.

"What?" Hermione asks then, more anxiously. "Did I say something wrong?"

"Ah, no, no," Fleur says, shaking her head. "Perhaps, zough, you should not go around saying zees zings to strange men, as you just asked me to teach you how to French kiss in exchange for teaching me English..."

It is Hermione's turn to blush. "Oh."

"You also just asked me about my underwear..."

"I'm sorry. My French is a bit rusty...I haven't used it in a while..."

"I could teach you French, if you want," Fleur offers now, with a wide smile on her face. "Though I don't know about the French kissing...we barely know each ozer, no?"

Fleur doesn't know how it is that Hermione finally agrees, but in between discussing and agreeing on a time and a place, and a fee for Hermione's services, Hermione reluctantly agrees.

Fleur had chosen to ignore that part where Hermione still looked suspicious and reluctant to be anywhere near her.

No matter.

She had an opportunity and she grabbed it. It is better than nothing. She will be safer with Fleur around than without. Their life, their very existence, she suspects, may well depend on it.

* * *

**A/N: Many thanks for the reviews, follows and favs. Acknowledgements also to the beta, DragonsWillFly. **


	3. Chapter 3

Fleur is a good student.

In fact, Fleur is a brilliant student.

Much more so than the woman gave herself credit for. In fact, in the space of a few weeks, despite confusing the terms in morphology and phonology and having not much use for the symbols that indicated whether a vowel was tense or lax or a consonant voiced or unvoiced, and really, not caring what tense, voice, mood, a sentence was in, as long as she could speak English clearly, Fleur actually already had a fair grasp of the language. The woman insists on speaking only in the present tense, because, she says one day, "There is only the present, only the eternal present," that leaves Hermione puzzled and wondering what the cryptic saying meant. Hermione suspected that save for that slight French Canadian accent the other woman is using, she's quite capable of speaking English without a tutor. What makes Hermione curious is why she insists in feigning helplessness with the language, that it is difficult to master or speak, and why she insists on learning from Hermione. Clearly the other woman is reasonably intelligent, but it is with morbid curiosity that she wants to find out what Fleur is up to.

Hermione has to admit though that aside from the intelligence and the healthy dose of curiosity she harbors, she is, above all, quite fascinated by Fleur. And in fact, finds the other woman incredibly distracting when they have their classes in the library (the school's library, the public library) where they study English.

Fleur usually comes in tight jeans and blouses that are open at the throat, sometimes opened lower, so that Hermione cannot help herself staring at the hint of the cleavage there and finds herself blushing when she realizes Fleur has noticed her staring, and not saying anything at all, but smiling as if flattered by Hermione's attention. Fleur usually comes with little make-up and few to non-existent accessories, preferring to just wear a scarf, or a simple necklace, or, sometimes, as the autumn breeze begins to suggest colder weather, a beanie. Most times she just lets her long, wavy blonde hair fall in loose waves and when her hair falls over her face, or when she flicks them away from her eyes, or when the weak autumn sun shining from the library window catches the streaks of blonde in her hair and gives her an unreal glow, Hermione finds herself catching her breath, as if someone has knocked the wind out of her and she cannot breathe.

Fleur is so beautiful, like a model, delicate, sculpted features, her features harmonized. She has fine, pale skin, a flawless complexion, translucent, high cheekbones, eyes an unusual shade of blue. Once, when she wore an off-shoulder shirt and the sleeve had slid off one shoulder, Hermione finds herself staring at skin and realizing that Fleur had a lovely shoulder. As Hermione stares at her shoulder, she has the sudden urge to touch it. She immediately blushes. And it isn't just the one instance, it is many instances of studying Fleur's profile and realizing how interesting every inch of the woman is: one slender leg thrown over the other, smooth thighs, the way she smiled, or laughed, even the way she smelled, and Fleur always smelled a maddening smell of jasmine drenched in rainshower, the whole totality of the woman, and yet the sum of Fleur's parts is still more than the whole and it confuses her even more.

She doesn't even know why she likes the other woman - Fleur is imperious, formidable, demanding, but also, and here Hermione is confused, incredibly confusing. Once, during a particularly exhausting session on subjunctive moods, Fleur had told her she wanted a break, and that she wanted to listen to music, and then she starts to play an unfamiliar song, an Icelandic psychedelic song whose title and the band that named it, escapes Hermione's memory now, but she remembers Fleur smiling in a faux coquettish way and with a wink and a smile, she says, "Slow and dreamy at the start, with plenty of great climaxes," sending Hermione blushing all over again.

Despite the confusing mixed signals, neither woman makes any move to see if the interest on either side should be explored or could possibly be reciprocated.

In fact, aside from furtive glances and blushing and some awkward silences, punctuated by Fleur saying something inappropriate that would send Hermione blushing again, there is more studying and practicing of speaking in English rather than anything else.

But if Hermione were to be honest, there is just something about Fleur that makes her hesitate about making any kind of move at all. Whilst Fleur may play at flirting once in a while, she doesn't think it is a conscious effort on her part, rather just a natural part of who she is, because she's seen how Fleur interacts with librarians, or the occasional male (and sometimes) female student who attempts to pick her up and though Fleur smiles and flirts back, she never comes away from any of this flirtations with a number or a man (or woman) by her side. There is, more than anything, something cautious, guarded with Fleur, as evidenced by how quick her reflexes are, how quickly she starts when a door slams, or the loud bang of a window or an engine sets her on edge. Her blue eyes are always alert, as if searching or waiting for something that will appear at any moment, and the muscles rippling on her arms, suggest to Hermione that the other woman is more than capable of defending herself. Once, she'd caught a glimpse of what seems to be a tattoo, on the back of the other woman, and she wonders what the tattoo is, what it is meant to convey, and she wonders at the circumstances as to why Fleur would feel compelled to get them, to mutilate her back so.

She wants to ask the Frenchwoman but feels too shy to do so, thinking it really is none of her business what Fleur does to her body. When, once, Fleur invites her out to a drink at one of the local pubs that a lot of the other Salem college kids frequent, and Hermione catches a glimpse of the tattoo snaking from her back and just a little to the back of her shoulder, as she takes off her leather jacket, Hermione again feels the urge to touch her, and as she stares at Fleur, she feels it: desire pooling in her gut, and she starts to blush again and when Fleur notices her staring, she looks away, embarassed.

It is a tentative friendship, at most, filled with a lot of things unsaid and ignored. It suits Fleur fine as her English improved and as Hermione patiently teaches her.

* * *

Salem moves deeper into autumn, the town gearing to celebrate Halloween with jack o'lanterns, and pictures of witches, ghosts, skeletons and black cats started to fill Hermione's college's hallways, rooms, dorms, the town supermarkets, restaurants, coffeeshops and even the convenience store just by the corner from Hermione's flat. Halloween, more than anything, was Salem's biggest draw, and ironically, one of its peak tourist seasons. For some strange reason, tourists seemed to be more drawn to Salem around Halloween, skulking around the town streets, maps and books in hand, clutching souvenir shirts or a bag of souvenir keychains or other trinkets, visiting the place where the infamous Salem witch trials had been held, visiting Salem's museums, venturing out into the woods to see if they could find ghosts still haunting the place. The locals, including students like Hermione who have been here long enough to find tourist fascination with Salem and its dark, troubled past ridiculous and pointless, although like the locals, Hermione neither encourages or discourages the tourist interest in Salem, as steady tourist influx during Halloween meant revenue for the town at a time when everyone else is still reeling from an economic downturn that doesn't seem to show any signs of letting up.

The days grow colder, the streets grow emptier earlier, the pubs filled with more students, locals, tourists, and Hermione and Fleur continue to study, though Fleur's conversational English is such that Hermione thinks she doesn't need a tutor at all. Fleur insists though and so they study, all the way up to the eve of Halloween, as the streets fill with local kids in costumes, going trick or treating from house to house with disgruntled older siblings watching them from a few yards away, older kids running around in masks and costumes terrorizing the younger ones and getting into fights with the siblings, college kids in costumes (Hermione takes note that the college boys have a variety of increasingly nerdy ones as opposed to the skimpy ones the college girls have chosen to employ) rushing off to frat, sorority or just friends' parties, and coming back out hours later, visibly drunk, to watch the Halloween mardi gras the town conducts every year. Fleur must notice how distracted Hermione is, glancing at the window to catch an interesting kid in a strange costume walking down the street and Fleur slams the book so hard it startles Hermione.

"I think we should call it a day, yes?" Fleur declares now, with a smile on her face.

"What are you talking about, we should..."

"No matter, we shall see what this town has to offer in the way of parties, yes?" Fleur says now, putting books and notebooks in her bag, standing up and pulling Hermione to her feet before the other woman could protest. "I here Salem's Halloween mardi gras rivals that of New Orleans. This is true, no? I would like to see..."

And before Hermione can answer, they are out on the street, randomly following college kids to a party just a few blocks from the library. In a matter of minutes, Hermione, unaccustomed to being drunk, has had her nth beer, and is feeling tipsy, and Fleur, the more accustomed of the two, is holding court in the middle of a gaggle of young, masked men listening to her every word.

She spots the man at the nth party Fleur has dragged her into. Apparently Fleur has gotten quite popular and knows a few of the kids around town enough to be invited to a few of them.

Presently, Fleur is drinking wine as she listens feigning interest, to a handsome, muscled young man with impeccably styled hair and deep, confident voice, regale her with his exploits as an athlete.

There had been college boys who had tried to strike up a conversation with her, but Hermione was feeling moody and sulky, noticing that Fleur had seemed to prefer the company of men to hers. Then again, she'd been teaching the woman for the better part of a few weeks, a couple of months maybe, maybe Fleur wanted to just be in the company of some other people?

Anyway, she notices the man a few minutes after they've been in the party. She is sitting on the sofa, cradling a bottle of beer between her thighs when she feels it, a distinct difference in the air, a chill, as it were. And she looks up, cranes her neck, looking around the crowds of people, straining her ears for something, but then the crowd seems to part, ever so slowly, and she sees him, by the doorway, a few yards away, a man, in his thirties, in a long, dirty, black coat, scruffy jeans, muddy boots, gloves with the fingers cut off, hair greasy and in clumps, but it is his face that gives Hermione a shiver up her spine. The face looks human, but barely, it looks mostly like like an animal's, a wolf's, savage, primal, full of controlled fury and menace as he locks eyes with Hermione. Hermione holds his gaze for a few seconds, but as the seconds tick by, she feels the fear building in her. She looks away.

The crowds close in again, the music plays louder, and she suddenly feels nauseated, sick, so she stands up, searches for Fleur in the crowded room, but finds Fleur already standing in front of her.

"We need to go," Fleur says curtly.

Hermione doesn't protest as Fleur grabs her hand and they make their way through the crowd, away from the front door, and out the back door.

* * *

The welcome air that greets them feels good to Hermione and the tightness that's formed in her chest loosens a bit. Without saying anything, Fleur pulls her away from the door, down the yard, out by the back gate, and into the street beyond.

The evening revelers had already come out for the night in their masks and costumes, drunk on beer and wine and the shared high of camaraderie and merrymaking. The mardi gras had just started with bands, floats, costumed people marching down the roads – drag queens and ghouls, witches and wizards, vampires and werewolves, zombies and corpses, Frankensteins and clowns, dwarves and elves, goblins and pixies, the whole gamut of supernatural and paranormal creatures parading down the mainstreet that made Hermione, strangely, afraid. She wonders why, as she'd long considered Halloween a harmless little holiday that people invented as an excuse to play dress-up.

Hermione and Fleur are trapped by the crowds that had lined the streets and the costumed participants of the parade so that they are stuck in the middle of the crowds, unable to move. For a moment, Hermione thinks maybe they'll stay to watch the parade itself, but then she sees him again, in the middle of the parade, standing there, seemingly undisturbed by all the revelry going on around him, staring at Hermione with menace in his eyes. The chill Hermione thinks has left her comes back.

"We need to go," Fleur says again, looking in the same direction as Hermione, as she yanks her away from the crowd.

They manage to cut a path through the crowd and a few seconds later, there is darkness.

* * *

Hermione couldn't explain it.

One minute they were both at the edge of the crowd, walking, Fleur clutching Hermione's hand tightly, the next minute there is darkness, screams, her screams, confusing images, a feeling like someone has knocked the wind out of her, nausea and then she finds herself landing on soft grass, Fleur's hand still holding hers firmly. Fleur lets her hand go and she throws up on the ground.

"What...what..." Hermione says now, dizzy, sick, confused as she tries to focus on Fleur, focus on the surroundings around her. She sees darkness, trees, grass and knows she is in the woods, with Fleur and it is night and the stars and the moon are out, and she feels the fear grip her anew.

"I'm sorry...there was no other way...I..." Fleur tries to explain but then they hear a soft pop and they both turn and in the darkness they hear the crackle of shoes, boots against ground, against twigs, someone moving through the woods, and Fleur stops, motions to Hermione to keep quiet and she stands still, Hermione laying still, both of them holding their breath. Hermione watches as Fleur plants both of her feet on the ground firmly, as if preparing for a fight and as she looks at her, she finds her back, where she has her tattoos, begin to glow, veins crisscrossing across her back lighting up to show Hermione wings and she sees Fleur's hands glow as she slow brings them up in a defensive stance.

There's a rustle and a crackle and there's a person that steps out of the clearing where they are, but the man quickly shouts, "Don't! It's me! It's me!" before Fleur attacks him with...whatever it is that is on her hands.

"Oh, thank god, Lupin!" Fleur says. "I could have killed you."

"Remind me to thank you you're on our side," the man called Lupin says as he steps forward to shake Fleur's hand. "Have to remind myself never to cross a veela, _ever._"

In the half-darkness afforded by starlight and moon, Hermione can make out a man in his thirties, hair unkempt and graying, tufts of it sticking out at irregular angles from above his ear and the nape of his neck, an equally unkempt mustache on his upper lip. He looks exhausted, the clothes, a coat that has seen better days, scruffy pants and worn shoes, lend him a shabby look.

Presently, Fleur has let out an irritated "tsk" and refuses to shake the man Lupin's hand and instead grabs him and kisses him on both cheeks. Hermione has an errant thought that she wishes it her cheeks Fleur is kissing instead.

"Lupin, I'm glad you're okay," Fleur says softly, embracing the man, as if in relief. "How are you?"

Before the man, Lupin, can answer, there's another soft pop and they both turn and this time, there is no warning as the man that Hermione recognizes as the strange, freaky man from the party in the greasy, dirty coat comes rushing out of the woods, sharp teeth at the ready, sharp claws at the ready, flying into the air and right into both Lupin and Fleur's space. Both Lupin and Fleur don't flinch though as they move aside and as Fleur puts out her hands, shouts out something that Hermione thinks is Latin, Hermione slinks back. Fleur turns to her and says, "Get back!"

The man seems powerful, Hermione thinks, as Lupin and Fleur fight him with what Hermione thinks is streaks of light and energy, like fireworks exploding, lighting up that section of the woods. Fleur's is green and blue, Lupin's is streaks of indigo and violet and the man, the man's is red and menacing. She watches fascinated, before the man conjures up something stronger and throws both Fleur and Lupin back and away from him and Hermione, and she sees Lupin slam against a tree trunk, Fleur against bushes and she's so worried about Fleur and her friend that she doesn't notice the man approaching her deliberately, menacingly, as a predator would a prey, licking his lips and looking at her as if she were the main course in a meal, his meal. He grins in a devilish way and Hermione sees rows of sharp, canine teeth. There's something in his hand, something sharp that glints silver against the moonlight and she squints and sees that it is a knife.

"Hello, love, alright? You gave us quite a scare, disappearin' off like that," the man says in a thick accent that Hermione immediately places as British and East End.

Before she can say anything or move away from the man, the man has moved so fast, darting so quickly to her that she finds herself pinned on the ground, his face inches from her own, his breath stinking of rotten fish, smelling of wet dog, mold and death, sharp knife pressed tightly against her throat. "Now why'd you run off like that?" he asks, as if he were asking about the weather. "Told the boss you were a lot more trouble than you're worth, ya know...I..."

When she tries to struggle, the man's look darkens and he lifts his other arm and with the sharpened claws that pass themselves off as his hand, slaps her face so hard that she feels the sharp sting of pain, the smell and taste of blood on her mouth, feels the blood trickle down her face as the man hits her again. "Stop strugglin'! You're only hurtin' yoursel'...now where is it?"

The man sits on both of her arms, his body heavy on her chest and she can't breathe and fear and anxiety and despair and the feeling that she is going to die any minute are all fighting for dominance in her chest as she struggles to try to escape. This earns her a series of slaps again, before the man says, "I'm gonna ask again and you better answer this time. Where is it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about..." Hermione says and before she could finish the sentence, the man has taken the knife and starts to press the tip of it to Hermione's right arm.

Hermione screams.

* * *

**_A/N: Thank you for reading. Kind reviews welcome. Also, work is and will always be the priority so thanks for your patience. _**


	4. Chapter 4

**_The eternal battle between good and evil is not fought by armies._**

**_But by one person at a time. – Winter's Tale_**

* * *

The pain is unbelievable.

_Excruciating._

Hermione wants to die.

Hermione thinks she _is_ dying.

She can smell the man's stench, the stench of hate and death and remorseless glee at realizing that Hermione will die soon. She thinks this man has done this before, has killed people before.

She can smell his breath on her cheek, her throat, feel his weight on her chest, feel the coldness of steel against her skin, feel the sharpness against her veins. She can smell her own blood, feel it flow, feel the pain coursing through – a pain that she has never experienced before. Her face is bruised, scratched, stinging from where he had hit her repeatedly, she can feel the blood flowing there as well. She screams and screams and screams in pain, and the man only laughs, a vicious, cruel laugh that indicates he enjoys hearing her agony and pushes the blade further in, even as he shouts, over and over again, "Where is it?!" She thinks she can see herself as from afar, and she realizes, with resignation, that this is how it is going to end, with her on the ground, in the middle of the woods, in the darkness, under a moonlit sky, with some maniac stabbing her over and over again and watching her die with glee.

But then, the man's laughter stops, he makes a choking sound and her eyes fly open and she sees him wrenched away from her and she scrambles to get away, unmindful of her bleeding arm and her throbbing face, and squints in the darkness, to see Fleur, looking incredibly furious and radiant, light and energy flowing through her, luminous, transparent wings coming from her back, swirls and patterns and characters on her arms and parts of her chest illuminating her. The man is suspended in mid-air, struggling and wondering what is going on. Fleur looks, Hermione thinks, like an angel. Like a golden-haired angel out of a Rembrandt painting. Without even touching him, Fleur takes the man away, his knife falling harmlessly beside Hermione, and lifts him, hurls him sideways and slams him against a tree. The man hits the tree with a grunt and before he lands on the ground, there is a flurry of fur and fangs and claws and at first Hermione is confused, but then realizes that the man trying to kill her and the man who is attacking her have turned into...creatures. As she watches, the two separate, growl and hiss and circle each other, and she can see one of them, a creature like a wolf, snarling. The wolf's lips draws back from its teeth, and she sees its gaping jaw, its tongue. There is fury in its eyes as it looks at the other man, a pure and very human fury. And then they leap at each other and the wolf's jaws clamp over the man's shoulders and they go over in a writhing, snarling tangle, each growl answered by a howl of rage. The sounds are terrifying. Blood, the smell of it, flies in the air, splattering ground and trees and grass. Hermione is terrified. A tiny voice inside her is telling her to run away, but she cannot seem to move, rooted to spot by her terror, staring in fascinated horror at what is happening.

Werewolves? She wonders, the terror threatening to overwhelm her. No, one of them looks more animal than the other, who still looks human, but more monstrous. The wolf is huge, gray-black and brindled, with a long lolling tongue. She searches for the man, Lupin, and does not find him anywhere. She deduces, quite rightly, that the beast who has attacked the man trying to kill her is Lupin. Presently, she finds Fleur standing before her, still luminous and looking so beautiful it takes a while before Hermione realizes she is staring at the other woman with her mouth open. Wordlessly, Fleur kneels in front of Hermione, takes her injured arm and puts her hand on it. Light comes Fleur's hands and into Hermione's arm and she feels it, a sense of her wound healing. It is warm and soothing and quick and Fleur gives her a quick apology as she stands again and looks towards the woods, Hermione protectively put behind her. She realizes later that Fleur has told her to stay back. She wouldn't have replied even if she tried, too terrified of what is happening to say anything.

There are growls and thuds and yowls and the two creatures crash around the woods, and there is a final sound that emerges from the darkness and and then silence, then the other creature, not the wolf, charges out of the woods and before Hermione knows it, has struck Fleur before she can do anything, sending her flying, and the creature is diving for Hermione, all fangs and dark, angry, sinister eyes, and claws, and Hermione doesn't even know but, with heart pounding, her hands grab for the ground, search for a rock, a stone, a stick, anything to defend herself before it closes on a hilt, a blade, the one the man had been using on her and right before the creature connects with Hermione's body, Hermione has stabbed the creature with the knife, burying it deep into its heart.

She'd never used a knife before for something other than cooking meals, never even thought she'd bury it in someone's chest and kill him in the process. The closest she'd come to weaponry was reading up on Medieval weaponry as part of an extensive reading plan she had for a Medieval History class, so she is more surprised than anyone else, she suspects, when she kills the man.

There is a groan, and a flicker in the man's eyes, and for a moment he shifts into a human being, and the claws and fangs retract, before he sags forward, dead.

* * *

Hermione doesn't know what to think.

For a second all she can think of...she has killed a man.

Even when Fleur comes forward to pull the man off of her and fling him sideways, as far away from Hermione as possible, with as much disgust as she can muster, all Hermione can think of is she has killed man.

A breeze blows. A chill starts to permeate her being. She starts to shiver. Then she finds Fleur holding her as she closes her eyes, not knowing whether she wants to cry or scream or faint or all of the above, but Fleur just holds her, and they stand still, in the middle of the darkness, in the woods, in the silence as Hermione's world crumbles before her very eyes.

She doesn't know how long they stand there.

Lupin, now naked and bloody, swaying uncertainly on his feet, scrambles out of the woods and into the clearing and moonlight, clutching the man's knife in his hand. As he moves toward them, between one step and the next he seemed to shift and change like a wave rising and curling. As he gets closer, Hermione can see that he is covered in blood, his face is coated with blood, blood running from his arms to his wrists. She has no idea if the blood is his.

With an effort he staggers towards Fleur and Hermione. Hermione notices that Fleur has stopped glowing, that she is the regular blonde woman Hermione knows, and she now runs to Lupin as the man collapses in her arms, dropping the knife on the ground in the process. He manages to smile at Hermione and say, "Alright? That bloke isn't likely to bother you again, I gather" before he collapses in a heap on the ground, unconscious.

* * *

An old, broken down two-story building of brick and mortar, one part of the roof sagging, walls full of graffiti, overgrown weeds choking the building, windows broken, in some places smashed, birds and spiders and small, furry little animals having made their homes inside and outside the building along with the garbage, broken bottles and candy and crisp wrappers, a shoe, eggshells and rotting food thrown over the chest-high stone fence, large, ominous trees surrounding the building, lending it an eerie, haunted look as it stands in the middle of the trees, under a dark, moonlit sky, at the edge of the town of Salem, atop a hill.

Town legends do consider the building haunted, and save for the rabbits and wolves and foxes and other occasional animals that venture near the place, no human being within a ten-mile radius have ever ventured near the place, though some, the occasional gung-ho, crazy, drunk frat boy on a dare, or an equally drunk tourist out on holiday, have surely tired. Legend has it that the building had once been an asylum, and numerous atrocious, unspeakable things have happened behind closed doors that the oldest surviving locals are too ashamed even to talk about, and they say, that when one stands inside, in the middle of the building, and close one's eyes, one can almost hear the faint screams of unwilling insane patients being "cured", which was really a euphemism for "tortured", in the form of electrocution and starvation and compulsory isolation to have the insanity removed. Legend has it, one of the craziest patients had suddenly reached his breaking point and one day, had managed to grab a butcher's knife and hack everyone to pieces. Before that, the building apparently had been part of a larger estate owned by a rich married couple. The wife, having lost her firstborn to cholera and smallpox, had been driven to insanity, joined a cult, learned she was pregnant, sacrificed her newborn son and when she was caught, had cursed her husband, their estate, the town and everyone living in it, right before she was hanged. The property had been divided after, and apparently, every person who had owned a piece of the land had died, along their newborn child. And before that, this part of the town had been the site of a Native American massacre that the town would prefer to suppress from the town's history, along with its other unsavory histories.

And so, when Hermione, an unconscious Lupin and Fleur, vanish from the woods with Fleur's magic and appear on the front yard of the said haunted two-story Gothic architecture, Hermione is understandably even more fearful and nervous. But not before Hermione stands dizzy and wobbly in the middle of the yard, stumbles and falls on her knees, nauseated, trying to push down her urge to vomit on the premises. Again, she silently curses at this mode of transportation as she tries to breathe. It feels like being in a roller coaster, like the first drop on a roller coaster, where the track falls away and she feels herself hurtling through space, hands waving uselessly in the air and stomach getting caught somewhere in her throat, but then instead of plunging downward, they would hurtle toward darkness, the earth swinging dizzily beneath her, a blurring landscape of shadow and light. She hates it.

When, after a few seconds of trying to fight down the nausea, during which she watches Fleur stagger down the weedy path, dragging the unconscious Lupin with her, she says, "Fleur, what are we doing here? This is..."

Fleur, with some difficulty, stops just before the door, turns and asks, "What?"

"This place is..._haunted_," Hermione says, feeling a bit foolish even as she says it. Standing there, under a night sky scattered with stars like a handful of loose diamonds, the building looked harmless enough. Beyond the hill where the building stood, she could see the lights of Salem in the distance, and the faint noises of a town about to go to sleep. The wind is cool on her face, on her body. The moon, directly overhead now, lit everything nearly to a muted brightness. In the face of such an ordinary landscape, the notion of a house being haunted to the trained, highly logical mind such as Hermione's, just didn't seem to fit, and seems ridiculous now, in hindsight.

Fleur seems to think so, because amidst the pain and bruises and exhaustion that is so evident on her face and body, she manages to smile and with a twinkle in her eye, she says, "I thought you didn't believe in all _zose zings_...haunted houses and ghosts and..._everyzing _else..."

Hermione rolls her eyes as she gets to her feet, wobbles a bit and walks to where Fleur is standing. "Well, after what I witnessed tonight...which...I don't even know actually what I witnessed tonight...I should think haunted houses may or may not exist."

As she stands in front of Fleur, she takes Lupin's other arm and drapes it across her shoulders, taking a bit of the weight off of Fleur in the process. Fleur smiles her gratitude before she says, "Ah, but this is not really a haunted house, 'Ermione. It is actually more _zan zat_..."

"But the stories...and legends..."

Fleur shakes her head and waves them away with a hand in impatience. "It is a story our kind has spread for centuries now, to keep undesirable creatures away..."

"What do you mean?" Hermione asks now.

Fleur smiles her soft smile again. "You have nothing to fear, _cherie_. _Zis _place..._ze_ grounds...even _ze _building itself..." and here she waves her arms, "They are all consecrated...this is sacred ground...you are safe here..."

"I don't understand," Hermione says, taking the place in.

"Try," Fleur says now. "_Zis_ is...what we call _glamor_. Very simple...I hesitate to say _magic_...magic is too complicated a word...but it is _somezing _like _zat_. We let people see what _zey _want to see. But, as _ze_ writer Antoine de Sainte Exupery says, 'It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye'." She smiles a tender smile at Hermione now, before she turns to building, and with a sweep of the arm, she says, "Look. Don't just see. _Look._"

Hermione knits her eyebrows, wondering what Fleur is trying to say. To her logical mind, there is nothing to see, but just to humor the other woman, she tries to concentrate, to 'look' as she so adamantly said, and for a few seconds she stands there, stupidly, trying to see what Fleur is letting her see.

Watching her, Fleur rolls her eyes and says, "You cannot see like _zat_. Do not see with _ze_ eyes, look with _ze_ heart, 'Ermione and you shall see...like you saw the runes...the magical charms...on my back and arms tonight..."

Hermione sighs, exhaustion and sleepiness taking the better of her, and she says, "Fleur, I don't exactly know what you are trying to say, or what you are trying to let me do but..."

But then Hermione stops, surprised, as the building in front of her transforms into a beautiful gothic Cathedral, windows now colored glass of images from the Bible, the door of beautiful, ornate design made of oak, the yard now surrounded with gardens and the building itself looking serene and breathtaking, as if lit from within. She stands there, jaw wide open as she stares at the building.

"Welcome to the Church of the Rose," Fleur says with a smirk as she tugs at Lupin and they both drag the man onto the doorstep of the church.

Just before they enter the church, Fleur stands in front of the door and before Hermione could ask what they are doing standing the cold, Fleur lifts one palm, she sees the hand glow as later, what she will come to know as runes, glow and swirl and trace patterns on her palms, connected with the oak door, lighting it up, and the swirls and patterns flow from the door to the rest of the building, the light crawling up, letting it glow, as if unlocking it, and sure enough, the door clicks open, and Hermione follows Fleur, fascinated.

"Is there some other power you have that I should know about?" Hermione asks now as Fleur leads the way to the middle of the empty ground floor.

Hermione looks around, at the dusty concrete floor, at the bare walls, at the windows, at the rows of old, wooden pews, at the granite altar across them, at the cobwebs and dust and the rich dark smell of earth and age. People are supposed to feel safe inside churches, and she thinks maybe she is supposed to feel safe here, but strange shapes seems to loom up at her out of the shadows. She shivers and she says, "Well, it isn't much, is it?"

But Fleur then puts her hand out to the floor, palm down, and her hand, the runes on it, glow again, the light flowing from her and into the floor and right before Hermione's very eyes, a hole suddenly opens up from the floor, revealing a marble staircase and torch lights. Hermione just stares at Fleur.

"Oh, so you have that incredible I-can-open-portals-in-the-ground magic, too, do you?" Hermione asks now. When Fleur doesn't say anything and just impatiently motions for her to follow her down the stairs, Hermione mutters, "Because of course, you do. Well done, you..."

At the bottom of the stairs, Hermione gets another surprise when she isn't greeted by a typical basement reminiscent of those she's seen in other basements in Salem undergrad apartments, but a fully functioning large abode with electricity, a kitchen, a living room, bedrooms, a computer room, a gym, and other amenities.

"Welcome to my home," Fleur says now, as she leads Lupin to the couch in the living room. "Well, _Ze_ Order's, anyway, not mine. This is our sanctuary. Consecrated ground. No one will come to harm as long as they are under this roof. It is part of the covenant. You will be safe here."

"How...?" Hermione manages to ask as she stares at the decorations in the living room.

She couldn't even describe the living room if she tried. The room had couches, a nice expensive-looking Persian rug, cabinets and vases of roses and jasmine and a nice plasma television off to one side, with a state of the art sound system, but there were also, off to one side, a Buddhist statue, Russian icons, Indian statues, tarot cards, Chinese symbols, scented candles, incense sticks and a crystal ball. One particular statue catches her eye: the Indian goddess of destruction, Kali, brandishing a sword and a severed head as she danced with her head thrown back and her eyes slitted closed. Hermione vaguely remembers Kali as she who was created to battle a demon who could not be killed by any god or man.

"_Ah, Kali, my mother full of bliss! Enchantress of the almighty Shiva, in thy delirious joy thou dancest, clapping thy hands together. Thou art the Mover of all that moves, and we are but thy helpless toys_'," Fleur says as she kneels in front of Lupin, hands lit up again, as she runs them all over Lupin's body, hands inches from his skin.

"You will be fine for a little while longer, _oui_?" Fleur asks Hermione now, indicating her injuries and bruises.

Hermione glances at the man, then at Fleur and she guesses Fleur is trying to heal the unconscious man. Compared to her, the man looks like he has been mauled by a large tow truck and mercilessly regurgitated. And the blood, there's so much of it, she thinks. Hermione nods.

Fleur nods in return. "Aside from your arm, I don't think Greyback inflicted any serious injuries..."

Hermione nods, barely noticing that save for minor slip-ups, Fleur is speaking in fluent English.

Fleur smiles in encouragement, and says, "..._Zat_ I can see anyway. I shall check again later."

Fleur isn't even looking at her when she finishes the sentence as she sets about examining Lupin, who is now groaning and moaning in pain.

"Shouldn't we take him to the hospital?" Hermione asks tentatively.

Fleur barely glances up as she says, "Yes, we could, if I wasn't so certain the doctors and nurses would call the police...I think it would be hard to explain his injuries and how he got them...and more difficult to explain how he has fangs and claws and an all too different anatomy from the average human male..."

"Oh."

Hermione sees light emanate again from Fleur's hands and she thinks she can never get used to that. She watches in silence for a few moments, before she clears her throat and says, "Greyback."

Fleur stops mid-healing, not saying anything, before she looks up at Hermione. "What?"

"That's his name...Greyback, the man who tried to kill me," Hermione says. "The man I...killed..."

Fleur wordlessly nods.

"He's...a...what is he anyway?" Hermione asks.

"Vampire."

"And Mr. Lupin is...?" she continues, gesturing at the supine body of the man.

"Werewolf."

Hermione takes a few steps forward, towards Fleur, so that she is only a few inches from the back of the couch. Fleur, still kneeling on the floor, hands hovering above Lupin, just watches her. There is silence between them, broken only when Hermione starts to put her hands together, starts to wring them together, as she is wont to do when she is anxious and confused. Fleur patiently waits for her to continue. Finally, Hermione speaks.

"But I don't understand...!" Hermione says, confused.

Fleur arches an eyebrow.

Hermione ignores how sexy Fleur arching an eyebrow is. She says, instead, "I...I have a highly developed logical mind, I'm a realist, if I can't touch it, it doesn't exist, but in one night, you're telling me vampires and werewolves and witches...I assume you're a witch - nothing else could quite explain glowing hands and translucent wings quite like that term...and glamor and magic...and thinly disguised cathedrals...exist...and I'm supposed to believe all this?!"

Fleur waits for a beat before she answers. "I am not telling you anything, _cherie_. You saw it yourself..."

Hermione wrings her hands more urgently. "But...everything...everything that I've been taught tells me...mythical creatures, mystical things, good and evil, all these things are..._myth_...they do not exist...except as...ways for humankind to make sense of the world...nothing more than primitive science really..."

Fleur smiles then. "I forget sometimes how intelligent you really are, Hermione..." she says. "It kind of makes you sexy...I think..." she says, making Hermione blush. Fleur pauses before she says, "And as you have seen, _zese _creatures you speak of, _zese_ mystical things...good and evil, as you say, _zey_ all exist.._zey _are all alive and well...as you can see..."

"And the next thing you're going to tell me is...there's some battle between good and evil and there are armies out there and..."

Fleur's smile is wider. "Well, _oui_, _cherie_, there has _always_ been a battle between good and evil..."

"And Greyback? What does he want from me?" Hermione demands now. "Why does he want to kill me? He seemed to think I was in possession of something, something that he clearly wanted...something I clearly don't know about or possess..."

Fleur sighs. "Ah, yes. _Zat_. I am sorry. It is my fault I think. I should have been more...forthcoming _wiz_ you."

Hermione's heart drops. "What?" she asks, feeling like her heart is slowing down then speeding up. "What do you mean?"

Fleur looks her straight in the eye. "Hermione, do you honestly think you are just an ordinary person in an ordinary town living an ordinary life?"

Hermione considers this for a moment, before she answers. "Well, yes."

Fleur smiles again, one of those adorable, maddening smiles that, in spite of herself, makes Hermione's heart flutter. "Well, I am here to tell you, you are not."

"Not what?"

"Ordinary." Fleur hesitates before she says, "In fact, you're extraordinary. You are one of _ze_ most talented women I know, and if _ze_ past had not happened as it did, we wouldn't be here right now, talking about _zis._"

"I don't understand," Hermione says now. "What does all this have to do with me..."

"Hermione, _ze_ eternal battle between good and evil is not fought by armies, but by one person at a time," Fleur answers patiently, cryptically. "You were once central to a battle that had happened in the past. A battle _zat_ you had forgotten...not by choice, and certainly not willingly...and we had thought it would be for the best...but so many had died...when he came back...and though it pains us to bring you back into _ze_ battle where you lost so many people you loved...I do not think we have much choice now..."

"What do you mean..."

"Greyback was sent to kill you," Fleur explains, "This much I know. I had thought _zey_ wouldn't locate you so soon, or so fast, and _zat_ had I been given much more time, I could have helped you...regain your memories..."

Hermione could feel the blood pounding in her ears. She feels like her life, her world is slowly falling away even as Fleur continues to speak, as if her life has been built on a sheet of ice as thin as paper that is threatening to crack, threatening to plunge her into uncertainty. It is all she can do to speak barely above a whisper. "What...what memories...?"

"I don't know...I am not sure what you lost, what was blocked," Fleur says. "_Merde!_ Why you cared for _zat_ person is beyond me...but no matter...a spell gone awry, and you lost your memory...but before you lost it...you had...figured out a way...to end the war...and then you disappeared. You had realized it after he came back, and he killed everyone...and found out you were still alive...and I am certain _zis_ is _ze _reason Greyback is here...I am sorry, I should have warned you sooner. _Desol__é_, Hermione. Please understand I never wanted you to come to any harm. I promised him _zat_ much..."

Hermione is silent for what seems like hours, heart beating fast, a headache suddenly coming on, the anxiety going into what she feels will be a full-blown attack. First vampires, then werewolves, then the magic, then battles fought, death, violence, memory loss...It is all too much for Hermione. "Fleur...this is...a lot to take in..."

Fleur smiles when she catches Hermione looking at her. "If I explain everything, it will take us a while. I'd rather we do it with a cup of tea, don't you? Do be a dear and make some tea for us, would you?"

Before Hermione turns and heads to the kitchen, Fleur stops her.

"He would have killed you, you know," Fleur says.

"Who?"

"Greyback."

Hermione only stares at her. "You don't know that."

Fleur shrugs. "Well, he would have. You had no choice. It was _eizer _you or him...I for one am glad it was him..."

Hermione nods, more curious than ever about what else Fleur is about to tell her. She felt her heightened nervousness in her spine, in the pulse in her wrists, in the hard beat of blood in her ears.

Hermione doesn't know if she is going to be happy about it or not.

* * *

It takes a while, and some alcohol, anti-septic, cotton, bandages, gauze, band-aid, herbal remedies, some charms and runes and other things that Hermione doesn't really quite know before Fleur lays Lupin to rest on the couch, and Fleur, unmindful of her own bruises, sets to work on Hermione.

They go to the kitchen, to leave Lupin sleeping and recovering on the couch, bandages on his stomach and chest, and arm and a blanket over his frail-looking body. Hermione could not believe it is the same man who had turned into a werewolf earlier.

Fleur had led Hermione then to the kitchen, in order to speak to her, and not wake the sleeping Lupin. She has Hermione sit on one of the stools as she casts healing spells on the woman, having the woman sit there only in her sleeveless tank top and jeans, Fleur standing close to her, between her legs, as she lets the light, the warmth, the healing energy flow from Fleur's hands and into her body, into her bloody arm, her bruised face, her throat where the man had tried to strangle her.

Fleur works slowly, methodically, silently for a while, checking to make sure she is alright from head to toe, her fingertips brushing lightly against bruises, cuts, the wound on her arm, alcohol, balls of cotton, anti-septic, gauze pads and bandages by her side. Fleur had explained that the minor injuries can be cured by science, the more life-threatening ones, indicating her arm, can be cured by healing ministrations from Fleur's hands. Slowly, Hermione feels her body warm, can feel the healing take place, feels her skin regenerate.

"I don't understand," Hermione says as she flinches from the sting of the alcohol and anti-septic Fleur applies to her forehead, and the three long, thin, distinctive marks that Greyback had left on her face, start from her lower left cheek, then another on her jaw, and the last on her throat that had made Fleur stop and stare at her for a second before continuing to swab her.

"Sorry," Fleur apologizes, leaning over to blow softly on the stinging pain left by the alcohol.

Feeling Fleur's breath against her skin, and her nearness, makes Hermione all but squirm, conscious of her smell and her warmth and the distinctive urge to hold her. Hermione tries to calm herself down, taking a deep breath. Fleur, on the other hand, seems oblivious to Hermione's inner turmoil.

"What do you not understand?" Fleur says, when she pulls back, throwing the dirty cotton in a bin standing beside her, grabbing a new one and dabbing at Hermione's bruises.

Hermione shrugs. "Why don't you just...use magic? To heal me...like you did Lupin?"

"I really do not like using the word magic to describe what I...we can do," Fleur murmurs.

"Why not?" Hermione demands.

"Because it makes it seem like it is just parlor tricks, a trick of the eye, a cheap, two-bit Vegas show presented for the entertainment of ordinary human beings. And as you can see...that's not really what I...or you can do..." Fleur explains. "It is more than that...It is runes and spells and charms and chants...and so much more..."

Hermione doesn't know what to say to that.

"Besides," Fleur says, "One cannot and should not use magic all the time...if one can use regular, mundane things instead..."

"Why not?" Hermione asks again.

Fleur sighs, looking exasperated. "Because...magic cannot just be created, or destroyed so easily...and magic should not be wasted as well..."

"It is a renewable resource then?"

Fleur shakes her head. "It is a gift. A gift not to be taken too lightly or used so wantonly. Magic comes with a price, you see. It always comes with a price. You cannot use it unless you are willing to pay the price. And using too much of it will make you pay the ultimate price..."

When Hermione gives her a questioning look, Fleur says, "One cannot use too much magic...Too much of it does things to people...Makes people addicted...destroys them...drives them mad...makes them do unspeakable things..."

"Oh."

Fleur and Hermione settle into comfortable silence again, before Hermione speaks.

"So no wands then? And things?" Hermione says, with a smile on her face.

Fleur shakes her head, "You are...what is the word? _Incorrigible_..."

Hermione smiles, but Fleur is looking worriedly at her arm.

"I'm fine," Hermione insists. "I think I'll live." Fleur had already done much to heal her, although she still feels raw and aching.

"I don't know, Greyback almost had you earlier, I have to check if he put a spell or poison on you as well, " Fleur says, biting her lower lip as she does so, blue eyes intent on looking at the bandage on Hermione's arm, fingertips brushing against Hermione's arm, to where Fleur had cleaned the wound, dabbed some alcohol and anti-septic, put a little healing magic on it, and dressed it. The arm felt stiff and wooden and painful, but she had this strange feeling it is going to be alright.

"Don't worry, the ugly scars will probably scare away potential vampires and werewolves intent on killing me," Hermione says flippantly now.

Fleur smiles then. "You can never be ugly, _cherie_, even if you tried. You are beautiful."

Hermione stares at her then. Beautiful. Fleur had called her beautiful. No one had called her beautiful except family and that certainly did not count. She gazes at Fleur and is struck by how beautiful Fleur is, herself, and how, this close to her, inches from her body, she can see how iridescent her eyes are, how she could look at them and feel like she could get lost in them, how her hair, now still impossibly perfect even though Fleur had just emerged from a fight in the forest, reminding her of the sun, her chest, the small dip that hinted at a cleavage there, slowly making Hermione feel a blush crawl up to her chest, her breath, soft and comforting blowing against Hermione, and the nearness of her, making Hermione feel so conscious of everything.

Hermione dares to look at Fleur then, really look at her, and realizes a small cut is on her forehead, there are small bruises on her face as well, and she says, "You're hurt."

She doesn't even know what she does then, but her hand flies up, fingers tracing the cut on Fleur's forehead then, and she runs her finger on the cut, worried that it is deeper than it looks.

"It is fine," Fleur says then, flinching a little and catching Hermione's hand in hers. "It is a little cut. Nothing serious. I shall be fine."

Hermione is conscious of the fact that Fleur is still holding her hand so, Hermione lays her other hand on the cut and says, "But you're hurt. We have to do something about this...it could get infected..."

"You could kiss and make it better," Fleur says with a smile that sends Hermione blushing, so Fleur says, "_Desol__é_, Hermione, I am joking. I meant nothing by it..."

But Hermione's hand, the one that is on the cut, has gone to Fleur's shoulder, then to her waist, and the other hand twines itself into Fleur's fingers. It is as if they are in a trance, Hermione's one hand on Fleur's waist, the other hand holding Fleur's, thumb tracing patterns on the back of Fleur's hand.

Hermione realizes, just after she does it, that she is kissing Fleur.

She realizes for a full heartbeat that she has just pulled Fleur to her and is kissing Fleur, their lips touching, lightly at first, tentative, but then more urgent, and she remembers thinking Fleur smells of jasmine and her lips are soft and her kiss is soft and tender and that she wants to be kissing her, for longer. Her heart was hammering, and there was a rushing sound in her ears, like beating wings and she thinks maybe Fleur will push her away and she thinks it's the magic and the trauma and everything else that she has gone through tonight that is making her do this but she finds that she doesn't care, that at the moment, all she ever wants to do is kiss Fleur over and over again. Fleur doesn't push her away though and in fact draws her closer, closer, until Hermione has her arms around Fleur's neck and Fleur has her arms around Hermione's waist and she can feel how silky and fine Fleur's hair is, how smooth her skin is, there is only silence and the ticking of the clock and the night and darkness outside but then it is all over, and Fleur is reluctantly pushing her away, a guilty look on her face.

"Hermione..." Fleur says then.

"I'm sorry," Hermione immediately says. "I don't know what got into me...I..."

"I can't..." Fleur says then. "I'm married."

There is a long, awkward, embarrassed silence, before Hermione clears her throat, smiles and says, "Well, let's...pretend that never happened, shall we..."

"Hermione..."

Hermione cuts her off, her face red. "So I used to be a witch, too, huh?"

Fleur knits her eyebrows and Hermione can swear it is one of the more adorable things the Frenchwoman can do under the circumstances.

"I really hesitate to call us that, but _oui_, you are," Fleur says now.

"And this Greyback was sent by this...Voldemort, to kill me?"

Fleur nods. "After _zey _get what they want, _oui_."

"Which is...?"

Fleur shakes her head. "No idea. I am hoping you can tell me. I think it is something crucial to destroying Voldemort..."

"And just to be clear, from what you told me earlier, this Voldemort is some kind of...evil dark overlord bent on world domination?" Hermione asks, trying to sound flippant, but feeling a hard knot forming at the pit of her stomach. She finds herself trying to breathe around it, tries to push down the anxiety and fear and confusion.

Fleur nods.

"And what does he want with me? Why would he think I am important enough to kill?"

Fleur looks at her then, blue eyes piercing her. "Because you are. You helped your friends, the Chosen One, defeat him the first time...Without you, I think the boy wouldn't have stood a chance against him...he is a powerful warlock, your friend's only weapon an inaccurate prophecy that may or may not even be true..." and here she looks at Hermione then and smiles. "But you were there, and you figured out about the horcruxes...and his plans and..."

"Horcruxes?"

Fleur nods. "Seven horcruxes, imbued with pieces of his soul. The horcruxes would have made him immortal, but for a price..."

"And the price was?"

"Seven souls. Seven deaths. Seven murders," Fleur says. "You and the boy had not only discovered his secret to immortality, but how to destroy him...and you found out where he had hidden the horcruxes...and you _had_ killed him. Or the boy did. And we thought it was the end of it. That peace would finally come to the land."

Fleur hesitated then. "But that was not to be."

Hermione waited. Fleur had taken on a melancholic mood now as she speaks.

"What we had not realized, you see, was how powerful Voldemort really was," Fleur explains. "When he was young, he not only learned as much as he can, not only about how to get all the power in the world, and become the most powerful warlock the world has ever known, but about how to be immortal and how to have dominion all over the world..."

Fleur looks at Hermione then. "And this is where belief in good and evil, angels and demons come in, 'Ermione...some of us do not believe in _zem,_ _zat _is true, and I do not understand why...because _zey _certainly believe in us." She pauses then, letting Hermione take this in, before continuing. "That was why it was perfect. Warlocks and witches and other powerful beings, they do not believe in higher beings...arrogant and proud in their own power, they think they are the higher beings...but you see, Hermione, there are beings more powerful, older and more ancient than human beings, than time itself..._zis_, humans do not understand...And _ze_ reason Voldemort had been able to come back, even though the horcruxes were destroyed was because...when he was young, he had made a pact...with a demon..."

"What?"

"A demon..." Fleur says, "He sold his soul to the demon, in exchange for power, but thinking he could outwit the demon, he had hidden pieces of his soul...in the horcruxes, so that when the demon had come to collect his soul, he could not find all of them..."

Hermione nods, trying to understand what Fleur is saying.

"So long as pieces of his soul remained in the horcruxes, we were safe..."

"Sorry, horcruxes?" Hermione interrupts Fleur.

"Horcruxes, what we call those things where he hid his soul, they are usually small, imbued with something magical..."

"Like...a ring...?"

Fleur nods. "Like a ring. But in this instance, like a diadem, a necklace, a book..."

Hermione nods again. "And it would have been bad if the horcruxes had been destroyed?" When Fleur nods, Hermione says, "But I don't understand, the horcruxes would have made him immortal..."

Fleur nods and says, "Yes, but destroying the horcruxes would have freed up his soul to go to hell..."

"Oh."

"You and your friends, the boy, you found them all, and destroyed the horcruxes, freeing up his soul to go to hell..."

"That's good, right?" Hermione asks. "We destroyed evil and everything. So yay...us?" she asks, smiling uncertainly.

Fleur shakes her head. "You would think that, and I don't know what happened, but he came back...more powerful than ever..."

Hermione swallows, not knowing what to say.

"And...he has claimed dominion all over the magical world, set the magical world back into the Dark Ages, with warlocks and witches using quills and owls and wands and carriages and torches, and everything else, while the rest of the world is moving forward," Fleur continues.

"I don't understand...what happened?" Hermione asks.

"I don't know...we don't know...something happened between the time the horcruxes were destroyed, and the time he came back..." Fleur says. "But if we don't stop him, he will bring something hell has always wanted..."

"What is that?"

"Armageddon."

* * *

**_A/N: That's it for this chapter. Thanks for reading. Kind reviews, favs and follows much appreciated, and are good motivators for new chaps, as very busy with work and studying. This is where the extreme A/U aspect comes in - have been reading a lot of ancient/medieval European history, Milton, Goethe, Chaucer and Dante, so. And also because, towards the end of the books, I was kind of sorely disappointed Voldemort could be so easily defeated...I find him a compelling villain/character, Harry Potter less so. _:) **


	5. Chapter 5

"_And, lo, there was a great earthquake ; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood."_

A voice from behind makes both of them turn to see Lupin, still looking groggy and exhausted, wincing from the pain all over his body, standing uncertainly by the doorway, leaning on the door for support.

"_And I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth : and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit ; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace ; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth : and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree ; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months : and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man. And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it ; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them,_" Lupin speaks as if from memory.

The two women are quiet, not knowing what to say.

Finally, Fleur says, "Lupin...you must rest..."

Lupin cuts her off with a little smile. "Revelations chapter nine. Never cared much for Revelations, but there you go."

"Lupin..." Fleur says now in exasperation.

"I see you have been briefing our Hermione on Armageddon," Lupin says, walking uncertainly to the edge of the table, gripping the edge and wincing as he takes a seat.

"Lupin, your wounds, you need..." Fleur tries again.

"What I need, my lovely lady, is some hot tea," Lupin says now. He smiles at Fleur. "I am a werewolf. We heal fast. We may not possess the kind of...talents veela have, but we do have that."

Fleur looks hard at him. "Are all you English people this..._incorrigible_?" she demands.

Lupin laughs. "Only the ones with our particular..._talents_."

Fleur shakes her head in irritation before she pushes a mug in front of man, drops a bag of tea in it and pours him some hot water from a kettle.

"Besides, I nearly died, we don't have time, we should be...helping Hermione remember so she can help us, before Voldemort gets too powerful for us to stop him," Lupin continues, taking the mug between his hands, inhaling the scent of English tea before sipping from the cup, closing his eyes for a brief moment to appreciate the taste.

"Honestly, I do not know what you are all talking about," Hermione says now. "I don't know any magic and I don't even know how to stop this...Voldemort even if I tried. I'm sorry, but you must have the wrong person."

"Ah, I wish I could tell you you're right, but you are sorely mistaken," Lupin says now. "You were once..."

"Yes, yes, I was instrumental to some kind of battle whatsit in the past and I helped defeat Voldemort the evil dark overlord whatsisname but now he's back even more powerful than ever because he sold his soul to a demon and that horcrux-whatsit that he was supposed to use to achieve immortality but that would have kept the demon from collecting his soul, were destroyed, by me, and some friends I can barely recall and now Armageddon is upon us," Hermione says.

"I see you're taking this rather well," Lupin says.

"On the contrary," Hermione replies. There is a silence then before Hermione says, "If this were true...which it's not..."

"Which it is," Lupin says.

"Which it's not," Hermione insists, "Then I would need some kind of knowledge of magic, which I don't..."

"Which you do..."

"Which I don't," Hermione corrects him, "...And sorry, even if I did have some kind of knowledge, I would have to have some kind of...at least accomplished...warlock levels of proficiency so I can defeat this...Voldemort-person...which I don't..."

"Ah, which you do," Lupin says again, with a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his face, clearly enjoying arguing with Hermione.

"Which I don't," Hermione says firmly. "And even if I did know...this...magic thing...I wouldn't be able to defeat this Voldemort and prevent...Armageddon...I wouldn't even know how or where to start!"

Lupin puts up a finger and wags it in front of Hermione and says, triumphantly, "Ah, but you can, and you would!"

"Listen...Mr...Lupin...I don't even have any memory of having been some kind of witch before now," Hermione points out. "What makes you think I'd be of use to you or to the world now?"

Lupin and Fleur are silent. Lupin reaches for his mug of tea, sips at it, before he looks up and smiles at Hermione.

"Perhaps it would be better if Fleur here helped you remember what your life was like before," Lupin finally says. "I for one, hate being told what I should and should not remember...and sometimes...some things are best _seen_, _experienced_, not heard." He takes a sip of his tea again, looks at Hermione, then Fleur and says, with a smile, "I am tired. I will get some sleep. Happy remembering, Miss Granger."

* * *

"Ehm...what is this exactly?" Hermione asks, staring at the bathtub that Fleur has filled with water and is now currently sprinkling with water from a small vial. They are currently in a nice, cozy, tiled quasi-Victorian bathroom and Hermione can't help but admire the room for its quaintness. "And what is _that?_" she asks, pointing to the vial.

"_Zis _is holy water," Fleur says of the vial, "And _zis_ tub will help you wiz ze remembering," she continues, gesturing to the bath tub now full of water.

"Why water? And why the holy water?" Hermione asks, puzzled.

"Water is one of _ze_ elements _zat _help anyone remember, and also help _zem _pass through different dimensions or portals," Fleur explains. "By immersing you in _zis_ water, for a few seconds, it might activate _ze_ remembering. When you enter, it is like walking between worlds, helping you to see _ze_ past, _ze_ present, _ze_ future, and if you have _ze_ gift, maybe the different possible futures...it is like a door, but an imperfect one, as it helps you see in different dimensions, but you cannot really enter it, for _zat_ you need a proper door...a proper portal...but that will not stop undesirable beings like..."

"Demons?"Hermione asks with a shudder.

Fleur nods, "Like demons from attempting to enter our world through any means possible. It is a combination of your consciousness and _ze_ water, _zat_ makes it possible to walk between worlds..._ze_ holy water consecrates _ze_ water and so prevents _zese_ demons from entering through _zis _one..."

Hermione swallows, suddenly feeling cold and nervous.

Noticing Hermione's reaction, Fleur smiles. "Don't worry. I will be here. I will hold your hand, while you walk between worlds..."

Hermione nods, although she says, "Somehow, that doesn't seem so comforting as you're making it sound."

Fleur smiles sympathetically. "I know _cherie_, but I won't let anyone hurt you. I promise."

Hermione considers this for a moment, before she nods and with new resolve, says, "Alright then, let's do this. Let's get this over with before I change my mind." Fleur nods. Hermione looks to her and asks, "So what do I do?"

"You just...lie down, in the water..."

"Like just from the shoulder down?" Hermione asks as she holds the edge of the tub.

Fleur shakes her head. "No, your whole body, Hermione. You have to immerse your whole body in _ze_ water."

Hermione takes a deep breath. "Alright then." As she takes off shoes and gingerly steps into the water, she quips, "I am impressed by your vocabulary by the way...pretending to be bad at English is very...impressive..."

Fleur smiles apologetically. "_Desol__é_, Hermione. It was necessary..."

"It's fine," Hermione says, waving a hand as she lowers herself in the bath tub.

The cold water hits her with a jolt and she shivers involuntarily. She adjusts herself inside the tub, so as to be comfortable, and Fleur kneels beside her, puts her hand below Hermione's chest, gently pushing her down.

Before the water engulfs her, Fleur says, "Don't forget to breathe."

Hermione nods and takes a deep breath.

Hermione stays underwater for what seems like a few seconds.

Meanwhile, as she waits for whatever it is that Fleur thinks will help trigger her memories, there is silence and Fleur, above the water, looking serious and stoic, eyebrows drawn together, body unmoving, as she keeps her hand firm and steady on Hermione's stomach.

Nothing happens.

Hermione gets impatient.

She starts to notice the ripples of the water settling above her, notices the ceiling, notices how cold the water is, notices how uncomfortable her position inside the tub is. She starts to lightly tap her foot, waiting for something to happen.

After a few seconds, she starts to run out of oxygen, and tries to scramble out of the tub, but Fleur holds her firmly in place.

She flails, hands wildly thrashing about as she tries to push Fleur's hands away from her stomach. Fleur doesn't move though, face resolute as she holds Hermione down.

Hermione is panicking now, she's running out of air, hands and feet struggling, trying to get her head above the water, but Fleur is too strong.

She feels the last of the oxygen leave her body, feels her chest tighten, expand and then there is nothingness.

* * *

_**A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing.**_

_**Yep, still busy. Thanks for your patience. **_**:)**


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